I am moving rapidly towards the new edition of the book which will be chunkier and have three added short stories and a page of teacher notes to encourage schools to talk about the messages of the book. As part of the build up to this, I had fun writing a fourth short story which is exclusively published below. I hope you enjoy it!
Roxie walked out one summer morning
It was a rare day indeed. Roxie sat in her favourite armchair in the kitchen and pondered on the day ahead. She had a whole day herself and she was contemplating what to do, if anything.
A new IT system was being installed at work so the shop was shut and all the staff had all been given the day off. Her children were on some summer term ‘field trips’ which were supposedly educational but Roxie thought were in fact really all about fun.
“I suppose fun is educational, though,” she said out loud to herself. Her youngest two were off to the splash park in Maynard Dreams as some people called the nearby city, perhaps ironically, or perhaps not. And then they had play dates with friends after the school trip. Whilst her two oldest were visiting the City Museum followed a trip to the small but nausea inducing theme park not far away. Roxie still wondered why young people liked to get dizzy on these rides.
So, she had until early evening, a whole day to herself…
And it was hot. Very hot. Almost too hot.
“What should I do, Strumbold?” she said to favourite teddy bear sitting on the kitchen table opposite her. (She hadn't had a chance to put him back into the Town Council chamber after a primary school event she went to a few days previous.)
“What makes you feel great?” said Strumbold.
“Thanks for the question. I think a good walk, while it is still fairly cool, might be just what I need. Do you want to come along?” Roxie replied.
Strumbold declined, preferring to stay in Roxie’s relatively shaded kitchen.
Roxie set off for the Old Track Walk. She smiled to herself when she got there, reflecting on a conversation she had overheard the other day between two teenage girls.
“I love imagining the trains that used to go up and down here,” one said.
“Really? Trains?” had said the other
“Yes! That is why it is called the Old Track. I worry about you sometimes!” replied the first girl.
As usual this prompted Roxie to think about how her Town Council could help everyone in the town to know about all the wonderful corners and nooks to explore in Netherneither End. And all the events going on too! Even with all the noticeboards, newsletters and social media posting, people still complained they were not aware of things coming up in the calendar…
As she arrived at the Old Track Walk, she breathed out with calm relaxation and breathed in the woody aromas trickling down from the trees. She delighted in the dappled sunlit patterns on the path ahead of her and stopped for a moment to watch a nervous squirrel climb a nearby treetrunk. She listened to the woodland creaking around her, pierced with birdsong. She knew at least ten species of birds inhabited these woods. There was both sound and silence surrounding her. She found a bench to sit down for a while and just float and swim in the space reaching out in every direction from her.
All this made her feel great. Strumbold was right to ask her that question.
A few people passed by, some offering a greeting or responding to hers. Of course there were some whose ears were filled with plastic who didn’t hear her say “good morning”. She felt sad that they were missing out on the sounds of silence and nature in this lovely place.
Roxie closed her eyes to better listen but then almost fell asleep. She decided to move on and see what new treasures she might discover, even though she knew this walk well. And then suddenly, another squirrel darted across her path and a pheasant ran in the opposite direction. ‘How odd’ she thought, for no particular reason except the movements of both animals seemed oddly furtive.
She walked on until she came to a spot with another bench. This one had a view across the town and she spent some time there musing on what might draw more people to this walk and the lovely places along its way.
And then Roxie recalled a conversation she’d had with a sister Sooshalla a couple of weeks back. She had just returned from a tour of Northern Ireland. Soosh had talked excitedly about the Giant’s Causeway, a whiskey distillery and generally the gorgeous beauty of the place. She’d walked the peace bridge in Derry and around much of the walls surrounding the city. But the thing that really charmed Roxie’s sister was the hand cranked poetry jukebox.
It was about the size of a postbox with a number of buttons, a small loudspeaker and handle to turn around. The idea being that a passer-by could generate enough electricity for the machine to play a recording of a poem, read by the poet themselves. Soosh loved this as she was a great believer in the power of poetry to help us appreciate our world and capture, like a sort of word photograph, a small moment in time, forever.
Being Mayor, Roxie spent much of her time thinking about how to make her town an even more joyful place in which to live, work, study and play. She mulled more on Soosh’s story and thought ‘maybe this is an idea for this Walk too’. And her mind went scurrying along thinking about how to persuade her councillor colleagues of this and where to get the money from and so forth…
A couple of hours later, Roxie returned to her kitchen and spoke with Strumbold about her idea. “That sounds just perfect,” said Strumbold “perhaps you could add a poem to the new column…?”
“Oh,” said Roxie “maybe, but this is not about me! There are some great poets living locally that we could ask. Poems about our town would be fantastic. And perhaps we could persuade a famous poet or two to add their poems as well!”
Later on that evening, after her children had told her all about their days and the fun they had had, Roxie told them about her idea. They were excited too and suggested having a competition involving everyone, young and old. They thought it would be great to encourage more poetry in their schools.
Roxie retired to her favourite chair and wrote a poem a while later. She had been inspired by her son Samalan, to have a go at writing poetry too. To her own surprise, she found it a very lovely thing to do, once she had shed all those rules, fancy references and analysis she’d had drilled into her when she was at school.
This is the poem she wrote:
The creaks and rustles of heaven
The sunlit leaves are glinting all shades of green
Summer is still with us
I glide through the dappled light
Remembering the glee of childhood days
Being surrounded by chest high bushes and bracken
Although my older legs now walk softly and more slowly
I wander through this old wood, along the Old Track
When suddenly there a rustle
And a squirrel darts across my path
Did he look back at me?
And another crackle
This time a pheasant scurries away on the other side of the pond
Did I happen across an illicit meeting between feather and fur?
But that is all over now
And I tramp onwards
Vaguely scuffing the dry earth beneath my feet
Until I find a bench to rest upon
I sit there, trying not to move or even breathe
Listening to the sounds of the forest
And all of sudden I am in the middle of an orchestra
Of creaking, swaying trees
Each following the beat of the wind conductor
I close my eyes to focus upon the music of this place
And smile
Bathed in this quiet but intense and woody rhapsody
And I walk on
This time an inch or two above the twigs and dust of dry old days
Roxie felt calm. Her poem helped her close and round off the day but with great energy for the next. And her new project!
